PSLE - Pressurized, Stressed, Lost, Exhaustion? Nope!

An interesting article on NewPaper:

So the key ways to overcome these issues are:

1. P - Plan and prepare early, no last minute work (plan your study strategy & practice, practice, practice!)
2. S - Seek to understand, not to rote learn (esp for Math & Science subjects)
3. L - Learn  to management your work and time (most PSLE students have time management issues)
4. E - Excel in your subjects, dont be complacent
           (For example, if you are good in Math, excel in it and don't be complacent. You would have more time to study for other subjects)
 

Parent's Feedback from Punggol & Tampines Centres (June 2012)

No. 1:

No. 2:

No. 3

No. 4

No. 5

 

Attention Span Revisited

There have been numerous formulas proposed for calibrating the attention span of children, adolescents and adults.

Some contemporary researchers advocate gauging children’s attention spans by multiplying chronological age by 3 to 5 minutes for each year of age. Others have set the human attention span at a maximum of 20 - 22 minutes of learning time for upper adolescence and adulthood.

Still other child development researchers have concluded that a child’s attention span is typically equivalent in minutes to the chronological age of that young boy or girl.

However, from working with educators, parents, and children over the past four decades, the following instructional attention spans seem most accurate and useful.

Attention Span: Under Optimal Conditions*
• Between ages 2 and 3 children have an attention span ranging from 3-4 minutes
• When children begin Kindergarten (approximately age 5), attention spans rise to a maximum of 5 to 10 consecutive minutes
• Between ages 6 and 8, the maximum time for focused attention, during instructional time, can stretch to 15-20 minutes when children are engaged in a single learning task.
• From age 9 to 12, the best estimates of an adolescent’s “focused attention” do not exceed 22 to 35 minutes, when they are engaged in learning.

*Caveat: Attention spans for children at play and when socially engaged will often exceed the maximum figures established for formal instruction.

Given today’s technological toys and tools for entertainment and productivity, sizeable increases in attention spans correlate with interactive involvement and far exceed traditional figures for customary instructional time spans. Extensions in attention spans are correlated with children are
• challenged (eustress)
• emotionally engaged (“fun”)
• receiving on-going feedback and support

Anyone with just a modest degree of experience working with children has noticed that when children are fully “immersed in enjoyment,” they frequently lose track of time and our chart-based expectations are repeatedly obliterated.
 

Technology and the Internet have prompted a new phenomenon referred to as “CPA” -continuous partial attention - where children and adults devote less-concentrated attention to two or more tasks that are attempted simultaneously without one’s full attention committed any single one of those endeavors.

As an expected outcome, the quality of execution in each task frequently suffers significant performance erosion. For example, a five-year-old can talk and he can also tie his shoe, but talking while tying his shoes concurrently can even lead to “performance paralysis.” One of the two tasks must reach the perform threshold of “automaticity” (where one task can be performed without actively and consciously thinking about each step in the process of execution) before we can successfully engage in the second task with some degree of expected roficiency.

Consequently, many American states have recently passed laws intended to curtail the hazardous practice of driving while using a cellular phone (and texting). Even the most reliable statistics on attention spans are meaningless when the brain is distracted. The charts presented here are most applicable under optimal conditions in the learning environment. They become distorted once distractions become a factor whether in a car or in a classroom.

Taken from article written by Ken Wesson.

Parents' feedback for Mighty Math program at Sembawang centre (2012)

International Mathematical Olympiad

◄ 52^nd IMO 2011 ►

Country results •Individual results •Statistics

Country	Team size			P1	P2	P3	P4	P5	P6	Total	Rank	Awards
	All	M	F									G	S	B	HM
People's Republic of China	6	6		42	12	42	42	42	9	189	1	6	0	0	0
United States of America	6	6		42	18	35	42	42	5	184	2	6	0	0	0
Singapore	6	6		42	27	23	42	36	9	179	3	4	1	1	0
Russian Federation	6	5	1	42	10	23	40	42	4	161	4	2	4	0	0
Thailand	6	6		39	11	23	42	42	3	160	5	3	2	1	0
Turkey	6	6		42	3	23	40	37	14	159	6	3	2	1	0
Democratic People's Republic of Korea	6	6		39	3	36	28	42	9	157	7	3	3	0	0
Taiwan	6	6		42	6	17	42	41	6	154	8	2	4	0	0
Romania	6	6		40	5	25	42	39	3	154	8	1	5	0	0
Islamic Republic of Iran	6	5	1	40	3	15	42	41	10	151	10	2	4	0	0
Germany	6	5	1	42	11	18	36	36	7	150	11	1	3	2	0
Japan	6	6		42	15	8	41	36	5	147	12	2	2	2	0
Republic of Korea	6	6		42	7	24	30	36	5	144	13	2	3	0	1
Hong Kong	6	6		42	4	17	36	32	7	138	14	2	1	3	0
Ukraine	6	6		37	14	14	40	28	3	136	15	1	2	3	0
Poland	6	6		37	1	17	42	36	3	136	15	2	2	1	1
Canada	6	5	1	42	4	9	42	34	1	132	17	1	2	3	0
United Kingdom	6	6		42	10	10	36	34	0	132	17	2	1	2	1
Italy	6	6		38	15	5	42	29	0	129	19	1	3	1	1
Brazil	6	4	2	38	3	3	42	33	2	121	20	0	3	3	0
Bulgaria	6	6		42	1	15	37	22	4	121	20	0	2	3	1
Mexico	6	6		42	4	0	41	30	3	120	22	0	2	4	0
India	6	5	1	36	9	2	39	33	0	119	23	1	1	2	2
Israel	6	6		42	2	9	31	35	0	119	23	1	0	4	1
Australia	6	5	1	38	4	1	40	32	1	116	25	0	3	3	0
Serbia	6	6		38	10	10	32	23	3	116	25	1	2	1	1
Hungary	6	6		39	6	8	32	27	4	116	25	0	2	3	1
Netherlands	6	5	1	38	7	1	42	25	2	115	28	0	2	3	1
New Zealand	6	6		39	11	0	38	26	0	114	29	0	2	2	2
Indonesia	6	6		41	2	6	36	27	2	114	29	0	2	4	0
Belarus	6	4	2	34	3	6	31	37	2	113	31	0	2	3	1
Peru	6	6		39	9	7	33	25	0	113	31	1	0	2	3
Vietnam	6	6		42	1	8	29	32	1	113	31	0	0	6	0
Slovakia	6	5	1	38	7	0	41	24	1	111	34	0	2	3	1
France	6	5	1	38	5	8	36	24	0	111	34	0	1	4	1
Croatia	6	6		41	4	1	42	22	0	110	36	0	1	5	0
Austria	6	6		38	17	2	32	21	0	110	36	0	2	2	2
Kazakhstan	6	6		42	0	6	25	29	3	105	38	0	1	3	2
Czech Republic	6	6		40	1	7	35	18	0	101	39	0	1	3	2
Greece	6	6		38	7	8	18	20	8	99	40	1	0	3	1
South Africa	6	5	1	36	1	2	31	22	1	93	41	0	1	2	2
Malaysia	6	6		37	0	10	25	19	2	93	41	1	1	1	2
Switzerland	6	5	1	27	18	0	25	18	0	88	43	0	2	1	1
Belgium	6	6		38	4	2	32	11	1	88	43	0	0	4	1
Lithuania	6	4	2	42	2	2	29	12	0	87	45	0	0	4	2
Portugal	6	5	1	28	5	7	24	22	0	86	46	1	0	2	1
Republic of Moldova	6	6		40	0	7	21	18	0	86	46	0	1	0	4
Spain	6	6		35	3	0	30	15	0	83	48	0	0	3	1
Argentina	6	5	1	36	7	1	23	9	1	77	49	1	0	0	4
Estonia	6	5	1	32	9	0	30	5	0	76	50	0	0	2	3
Denmark	6	6		34	0	1	29	12	0	76	50	0	1	1	2
Colombia	6	4	2	34	0	2	20	14	3	73	52	0	0	1	4
Macau	6	6		29	1	0	32	9	0	71	53	0	0	2	3
Philippines	5	4	1	28	0	0	24	17	0	69	54	0	0	3	0
Mongolia	6	5	1	40	0	4	10	12	3	69	54	0	0	2	3
Sweden	6	5	1	32	0	1	17	19	0	69	54	0	1	0	3
Latvia	6	5	1	28	1	0	25	12	2	68	57	0	1	1	1
Tajikistan	6	6		35	0	3	9	17	4	68	57	0	1	0	2
Georgia	6	6		34	0	0	17	16	1	68	57	0	0	2	2
Finland	6	6		31	2	1	19	15	0	68	57	0	1	0	3
Norway	6	5	1	33	9	0	18	7	0	67	61	0	1	0	3
Slovenia	6	4	2	31	2	1	24	6	0	64	62	0	0	1	3
Bosnia and Herzegovina	6	4	2	31	2	1	13	17	0	64	62	0	0	1	4
Morocco	6	5	1	30	0	11	9	14	0	64	62	0	1	1	2
Turkmenistan	6	6		31	1	2	22	4	4	64	62	0	0	3	1
Uzbekistan	5	4	1	28	0	4	10	18	2	62	66	0	0	1	2
Armenia	5	5		32	7	1	13	6	2	61	67	0	1	0	3
Azerbaijan	6	6		21	0	14	8	14	4	61	67	0	1	1	1
Costa Rica	4	4		28	0	1	13	15	0	57	69	0	1	0	3
Saudi Arabia	6	6		21	0	4	13	15	0	53	70	0	0	2	0
Cyprus	6	6		24	0	1	12	12	2	51	71	0	0	1	1
Bangladesh	6	5	1	26	0	0	10	13	1	50	72	0	0	1	1
Sri Lanka	6	6		23	0	0	9	17	0	49	73	0	0	1	2
Iceland	6	4	2	29	0	0	13	6	0	48	74	0	0	0	3
Luxembourg	6	5	1	28	0	1	14	5	0	48	74	0	0	1	2
Chile	6	6		26	0	7	4	11	0	48	74	0	0	1	1
Tunisia	6	6		24	0	0	13	9	0	46	77	0	0	1	1
Nigeria	6	4	2	17	0	1	10	11	1	40	78	0	0	1	0
Paraguay	5	4	1	19	0	0	9	10	0	38	79	0	0	0	1
The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia	6	5	1	18	0	4	9	5	2	38	79	0	0	1	0
Pakistan	4	3	1	20	0	2	8	5	0	35	81	0	0	1	1
Ivory Coast	6	6		20	0	0	4	10	0	34	82	0	0	0	2
Ecuador	6	5	1	17	0	0	7	8	0	32	83	0	0	1	0
Puerto Rico	4	4		15	0	0	11	6	0	32	83	0	0	0	2
Trinidad and Tobago	6	5	1	12	0	0	13	4	0	29	85	0	0	0	1
Uruguay	4	4		15	1	0	11	2	0	29	85	0	0	0	2
Ireland	6	4	2	17	0	0	7	2	0	26	87	0	0	0	0
Albania	6	4	2	18	0	0	2	4	0	24	88	0	0	0	1
Kosovo	6	5	1	15	0	1	2	4	0	22	89	0	0	0	1
Venezuela	2	2		14	0	0	5	2	0	21	90	0	0	0	2
Honduras	3	3		11	0	0	1	8	1	21	90	0	0	0	1
Bolivia	4	3	1	9	0	0	7	1	0	17	92	0	0	0	1
Kyrgyzstan	5	5		11	0	0	0	0	3	14	93	0	0	0	1
Syria	6	6		9	0	0	3	2	0	14	93	0	0	0	1
Montenegro	4	3	1	11	0	0	1	1	0	13	95	0	0	0	1
El Salvador	2	2		4	0	1	3	2	1	11	96	0	0	0	0
Guatemala	4	1	3	4	0	0	4	0	0	8	97	0	0	0	0
Panama	1	1		1	0	2	2	1	0	6	98	0	0	0	0
Liechtenstein	1	1		2	1	0	1	0	0	4	99	0	0	0	0
United Arab Emirates	5	2	3	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	100	0	0	0	0
Kuwait	5	5		0	0	0	1	0	0	1	100	0	0	0	0

Source; International Mathematical Olympiad offical website